Prof. Dietmar Dommenget
ENSO: non-linear dynamics
Supervisor(s): Dietmar Dommenget
Field of study: Climate Dynamics / Atmospheric Science / Oceanography
The El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) mode is often described by a simple linear recharge oscillator model. In this model we have an out-of-phase relation between the sea surface temperature (SST) and the thermocline depth (h). The observed phase space of SST and h has some interesting non-linear characteristics. That is, El Ninos are stronger and shorter than La Ninas. This project will aim at analysing this dynamical ENSO phase space with a focus on it’s non-linear behaviour and test different hypothesis on what is causing non-linear ENSO behaviour.
ENSO and tropical basin interactions in idealised worlds
Supervisor(s): Dietmar Dommenget
Field of study: Climate Dynamics / Atmospheric Science / Oceanography
The El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) mode is the leading mode of interannual variability. It interacts with the other ocean basins, which influences its strength, periodicity, predictability and non-linear behaviour. The project will use a fully coupled ocean-atmosphere GCM to simulate ENSO in idealised world with different ocean basins and land distributions. The different simulations will help to understand what is controlling the important aspects of ENSO dynamics.
Changing Modes of Variability
Supervisor(s): Dietmar Dommenget
Field of study: Climate Dynamics / Stochastic Variability
Global warming will change the mean climate in many different ways. It will also affect the modes of variability. The project will analyse State-of-the-art climate models (e.g. CMIP5 models) to understand how large-scale modes of climate variability will change. This will be done within the concepts of stochastic climate variability, using different methods, such as principle component analysis, power spectral analysis and stochastic modelling.
Tropical Circulation Changes and Variability in the Framework of the Moist Static Energy Balance
Supervisor(s): Dietmar Dommenget
Field of study: Climate Dynamics
The Framework of the Moist Static Energy Balance (MSEB) is simple approach to diagnose the large-scale tropical circulation (vertical motion) based on the current temperature, moisture and horizontal wind distribution. This is helpful in understanding what is driving tropical circulation changes on monthly or longer time scales. Fan and Dommenget 2020 have presented a simple MSEB model for applications to large-scale climate variability. The project aims at applying this approach to a number of different aspects of climate change and variability. It could, for instance, be applied to ENSO, tropical basin interactions or to idealized SST changes and the atmospheric response to it. The project will be a combination of data analysis, model simulations and analysis.
Simple Climate Model Projects
Supervisor(s): Dietmar Dommenget
Field of study: Climate Dynamics / Stochastic Variability
We have developed the simple climate model: Globally Resolved Energy Balance (GREB) model (aka Monash Simple Climate Model), that can simulate the global climate response to external forcing. It can compute 100,000yrs of simulation per day on a standard PC computer. Thus it is a nice and simple tool that allows for wide range of studies. Projects examples could be on: Simulating ice age cycles over the last 3 mill. years, include stochastic weather variability, do geoengineering studies, build strange worlds or exo-planets or developing new elements like ocean carbon, better precipitations at higher latitudes, soil moisture, aerosols or atmospheric circulation response. Detailed projects with the GREB model will be formulated together with the student, as there are simply to many different things that could be done with this model to list them all here.
Webpages:
Simulation of Ice-Age cycles with the GREB Model
Supervisor(s): Dietmar Dommenget
Field of study: Climate Dynamics / Atmospheric Science
We have developed the simple climate model: Globally Resolved Energy Balance (GREB) model (aka Monash Simple Climate Model), that can simulate the global climate response to external forcing. It can compute 100,000yrs of simulation per day on a standard PC computer. An important aspect of the last few million years of climate variability are the global 100kyrs ice-age cycles. The aim this project is to simulate the past million years of climate variability with the GREB model and try to gain understanding on what controls the global 100kyrs ice-age cycles. This project will be a combination of literature study, climate model development and analysis of model simulations.
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